AWS Lambda

Run code without thinking about servers. Pay only for the compute time you consume.

AWS Lambda lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. You pay only for the compute time you consume - there is no charge when your code is not running.

With Lambda, you can run code for virtually any type of application or backend service - all with zero administration. Just upload your code and Lambda takes care of everything required to run and scale your code with high availability. You can set up your code to automatically trigger from other AWS services or call it directly from any web or mobile app.

What is AWS Lambda?

Benefits

NO SERVERS TO MANAGE

AWS Lambda automatically runs your code without requiring you to provision or manage servers. Just write the code and upload it to Lambda.

CONTINUOUS SCALING

AWS Lambda automatically scales your application by running code in response to each trigger. Your code runs in parallel and processes each trigger individually, scaling precisely with the size of the workload.

SUBSECOND METERING

With AWS Lambda, you are charged for every 100ms your code executes and the number of times your code is triggered. You don't pay anything when your code isn't running.

How it works

Use cases

What can you build with AWS Lambda? Learn more about the use cases below:

Data processing

You can use AWS Lambda to execute code in response to triggers such as changes in data, shifts in system state, or actions by users. Lambda can be directly triggered by AWS services such as S3, DynamoDB, Kinesis, SNS, and CloudWatch, or it can be orchestrated into workflows by AWS Step Functions. This allows you to build a variety of real-time serverless data processing systems.

Real-time file processing

You can use Amazon S3 to trigger AWS Lambda to process data immediately after an upload. For example, you can use Lambda to thumbnail images, transcode videos, index files, process logs, validate content, and aggregate and filter data in real-time.

Bustle runs a serverless backend for its Bustle iOS app and websites using AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway. Serverless architectures allow Bustle to never have to deal with infrastructure management, so every engineer can focus on building out new features and innovating. Read the case study »

Web applications

By combining AWS Lambda with other AWS services, developers can build powerful web applications that automatically scale up and down and run in a highly available configuration across multiple data centers – with zero administrative effort required for scalability, back-ups or multi-data center redundancy.